As a corporate & intellectual property attorney, I help businesses build, grow, and protect their brand and assets. Prior to law school, I worked at a Fortune 500 company as a financial analyst and then moved into risk management. I then decided to pursue my JD/MBA as a CLEO fellow of the Indiana Supreme Court. After my first year in law school, I worked as a summer associate in the Office of General Counsel at Duke Energy in Indianapolis. During my second year, I interned at the Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Consumer Affairs in Chicago. That summer...

Macdonald Fernandez LLP focuses on business bankruptcy, reorganization and commercial litigation, including receiverships and assignments for the benefit of creditors, throughout California and pro hac vice in Delaware, the Southern District of New York. – Our clients range from enterprises with assets or amounts in controversy exceeding $100 million to small businesses, including technology companies, biotechnology companies, startups, Bitcoin-based companies, mortgage funds, national and regional banks, retail chains, medical clinics, residential care facilities for the elderly, farms, wineries, restaurants, churches, real estate developers and manufacturers. – In one example, we imposed a receivership over an operating almond reprocessing...

For nearly 20 years, Antone Johnson has served as lawyer, advisor, executive and advocate for emerging growth technology/digital media ventures, founders and investors in a diverse range of business and intellectual property matters. Raised in Menlo Park and Palo Alto, California, suffused with Silicon Valley's unique culture of innovation, he came of age professionally during the Internet explosion of the late 1990s, an entrepreneurial crucible of unprecedented wealth and job creation, reinvention of countless industries, and related venture capital and Wall Street dealmaking. Antone was fortunate to have a ringside seat at major Los Angeles and Silicon Valley law firms,...

Paul DeAngelis practices in the San Francisco Bay Area. He concentrates on real estate matters, including litigating buyer and seller disputes arising from transactions, neighbor and HOA disputes, and broker defense issues. He also provides transaction and counseling services to buyers and sellers, to property owners to resolve neighbor and HOA disputes, and to brokers and agents regarding risk management and BRE compliance issues. The information in this profile and any reviews or endorsements do not constitute a guarantee, warranty or prediction regarding the outcome of any legal representation. It is a communication within Rules of Professional Conduct of...

Marnie C. Lambert, the founding member of Lambert Law Firm, LLC, is licensed to practice law in all state courts and federal district courts in Ohio and California. She has spent most of her legal career representing consumers in complex civil litigation, commercial litigation, securities litigation and class actions. She has also represented clients seeking recovery for personal injuries, wrongful death and various business torts. Ms. Lambert received her juris doctorate from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1992. She spent the first five years after law school working in Los Angeles, California for a large international law firm....

Hanlen J. Chang provides legal services in Business Law, Real Estate, Estate Planning, and International Tax matters. He was recognized as a Super Lawyers rising star in 2015. Prior to establishing his own practice Hanlen was a research attorney at the San Mateo County Superior Court Probate Department. He has also worked for several Southern California and Bay Area law firms as a litigation attorney representing business owners and professionals . Hanlen grew up in Bubendorf, Switzerland and attended...

Jacob Harker is a San Francisco Bay Area attorney. Mr. Harker has set up and run his law practice in a cost-effective and practical manner. He has done so in an effort to pass on the savings to his clients. As an attorney, Mr. Harker sees his practice as taking the lead in a new era of legal services.

David Tsai is a Partner in Vinson & Elkins LLP’s San Francisco office. David's practice focuses on patent, trade secret, complex breach of contract, and product defect litigation for companies innovating biotechnology (pharmaceuticals and genetic engineering), medical devices, software (Internet and mobile apps), and hardware (semiconductors, set-top boxes, smartphones, solar wafers and light-emitting diodes/LED/OLED). His legal experience includes second chairing international arbitration cases, litigating in the areas of copyrights and trademarks, preparing and prosecuting U.S. electrical engineering patent applications, drafting patentability, freedom-to-operate and non-infringement opinions, as well as patent interference in the area of biotechnology. He also represents clients...

I am the managing attorney at Abtahi Law Group, a boutique litigation firm with a diversified practice focusing on civil litigation. We offer a full range of litigation services in high-stakes consumer protection actions, public health cases, and environmental litigation. We litigated individual lawsuits, class actions, and group actions in state and federal courts in California and other states. Clients include individuals, governmental entities, non-profit organizations, and businesses. What distinguishes Abtahi Law Group is not only the quality of our practice, but also our commitment to our core value of providing service to the community. We have a...

Ashley is founder of Talbot Law Firm. As an attorney in the firm’s emerging business practice, Ashley counsels startups with incorporation, early stage financing, employment issues, intellectual property protection, technology licensing, commercial partnerships and various other corporate transactions. Ashley believes that understanding a company’s vision and priorities is important to devising strategies to solve legal problems so companies can focus on their goals. Ashley has nearly 3 years in-house experience representing entrepreneurs in a wide range of corporate, commercial and intellectual property matters. Ashley received a J.D. from University of San Francisco School of Law and a B.A. in...

Mark A. Pearson is a founding partner at ARC Law Group (www.arclg.com), a law firm focused on counseling Creative, Talented and Entrepreneurial clients. His primary practice areas involve forming business entities, counseling on trademark & copyright issues, and drafting contracts for music, film & new media clients. His list of interesting and eclectic clients include entertainment industry tech firms, social media outlets, online content providers, film, radio & television producers, live entertainment companies, publishers and video game developers. Mark and his partner, Anne Yarovoy, have also been known to associate with various theater producers, musicians, industry execs,...

James M. O'Neil, Esq., practices in the areas of Estate Planning, Real Estate, Landlord-Tenant, Business Law, and Civil Litigation at O'Neil, Carideo & Ruepple, LLP. While in law school, James served as an extern for the Honorable A. James Robertson II in the Civil Division of the San Francisco Superior Court and was a member of the University of San Francisco Law Review. James received his undergraduate degree from Oberlin College.

Business laws include all municipal, state, and federal laws that regulate businesses and commerce. Some industries, such as finance, face specific laws and regulations that apply to those in the field. Businesses of all types also must conform to many regulations that apply across the board, such as environmental regulations and advertising laws.

A business lawyer can help you address the myriad legal issues that arise when you are starting a new venture, operating an established company, or winding up or selling a business.

Business lawyers handle a broad spectrum of legal issues that confront companies. For new ventures, a business lawyer can help with business formation decisions, including selecting the proper business form, such a partnership, LLC or corporation, or addressing financial compliance issues when raising capital. In addition, business lawyers can offer advice when reviewing leases, purchase agreements, and other types of contracts. Other issues covered in this practice area include employee compensation and benefits, building relationships with independent contractors and other entities, and compliance with relevant advertising regulations.

While most business lawyers deal in transactional work (contracts and forms), some also litigate business disputes that arise from transactional work. Business litigation attorneys may handle issues such as breach of contract claims, consumer class action lawsuits, and wrongful termination claims.

Business judgment rule:
a presumption that directors making a business decision, not involving self-interest, act on an informed basis, in good faith and in the honest belief that their actions are in the corporation's best interest.

Pierce the veil:
A court no longer affords a shareholder of a corporation the protection of limited liability when the corporation has neglected corporate formalities and intermingled assets between the shareholder and the corporation.